People regularly post HN comments that clearly indicate that they haven't read the linked article, and are rightly downvoted for it. My question is: should people responding with clarifications receive upvotes?
Often, someone responds to such "didn't RTFA" posts with a brief summary or pithy comment about how the parent needs to RTFA. This is free karma for the responder, who only needs to restate the article and/or insult the parent, both of which are noise to me. Do others disagree?
The guidelines are not explicit about this, so I am explicitly asking the HN hive mind.
I doubt such a thing exists.
For me every comment stands by itself, if it adds something original to the discussion then it is a possible upvote, assuming that it has not already received more votes than I think the comment is worth.
That way most situations are covered.
I hope that helps.